and figured we will shove this out in the marketplace and will just go away. at the time not all bookstores even wanted to have it. waldenbooks said we don't want to insult our reader. .. >> the author looks at the transformative nature of the war from the displacement of people

in battle-worn cities throughout europe and japan to the creation of the united nations and the continued rise of communism in the soviet union and china. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> in buruma, the henry r. ruth professor of journalism was educated in japan. he's won several awards for his work. the publications he writes for include the new york review of books, the new yorker, "the new york times," nrc, and "the guardian," which recently published his iley-learn -- iley-learned review of the book. among his previous books are

"taming the gods," "murder in amsterdam," and "inventing japan: 1863-1964." in "year zero," most of which he wrote while he was a fellow at the common center in 2011-'12 to the serious envy of his fellow fellows that he was so ructive, he's -- productive, he's produced a brilliant or trail of the world emerging from the unspeakable horrors of world wor ii in europe and asia. he wanted to know, he writes, what those who lived through the war and its end -- including his own father -- went through. quote: for it helps me to make sense of myself and, indeed, all our lives in the long, dark shadow of what came before. "the wall street journal" called "year zero" remarkable in its combination of magnificence and modesty, ask the financial times

describes it as elegant, humane, luminous. martin amis, who was honored last fall as a new york public library lion, has published more than 25 books, among them "money," "london fields," "time's arrow" and most recently, "lionel asbow." he was named one of the 50 greatest british writers since 1945 by the times, the london times in 2008. 1945 seems to be a teem here tonight. theme here tonight. we are extremely fortunate to listen in to a conversation between these two writers. they will talk for about 45 minutes, then take a few questions from the audience. there are mics toward the front on both sides, so please come up to the mic rather than try to speak from your care, and then

they will sign books, so please, let them get out to the table to sign. please welcome ian buruma and martin amis. [applause] >> determined by the war itself and shaped by the years that preceded it. and i've been spending recent years writing about this war and wondering about it and it was uniquely devastating with 55 million dead and many a ruined

city and and all the devastation we know of. it was, looks increasingly weird and grotesque, i think some aspects of the war, in that it wasn't blundered into like the first world war. there was one man. i mean, the japanese experience is slightly different but can be almost considered separately. but one man brought this about. and the only time hitler ever smile was when i think it was just before the invasion of poland which set the war in motion, but he said, he was questioned by a general, and he said i haven't got any nerves about this war. the one i'm worried about is that some swine is going to come up with a peace proposal. [laughter] he was set on it ever since

1918. and the fact that this one man flipped germany, the most -- the best educated country on earth, the best educated country there'd ever been into this pedantic exploration of the best, you know, is what happened is still remarkable. and the weirdness of much of the aftermath is sort of inherent in the war. do you have, you know, it's the great crux that no one can answer. it was said of the jews that they went like lambs to the slaughter. you could flip that a bit and say the germans went like lambs to the slaughterhouse -- >> uh-huh. >> and donned the rubber aprons

and got to work. do you have any german connections and your feeling for germany. i think, you know, ian is exceptionally well equipped to write such an ambitious book because of your connections with england, with america, with holland, with germany and, crucially, with japan. >> i don't think it helps necessarily to know germany well or japan well to explain the human propensity for extreme violence. one of the reasons i'm very happy to be on stage with you is because i think we share a sort of horrified fascination with why people are capable of doing terrible things. and i don't think it's -- i mean, there are people who say, well, you can explain it because the germans had an exterminationist mentality which goes from luther to hitler, or

the japanese are uniquely barbaric and cruel, anything like that. i don't believe that for a minute. and i think your question is a good one, is how is it that one of the most highly educated and civilized countries in europe produced so much extraordinary violence. because, yes, it was hitler who led it, but he couldn't have done it on his own. people, he had very active participation. and i think hitler is one example and perhaps the most extreme example in modern history, but there are others on a smaller scale of a political regime that deliberately exploits people's basest instincts. and i think the idea that there is a torturer in this all of us is a little trite. it's probably not true either. i mean, not all of us would make good torturers. but with it is true, i think, that if the authorities, the

government gives people license to do whatever they like with other human beings, you'll find a large number -- and one can't put a particular number on this, but you'll find a sufficient number of people who will do their worst, and it leads to torture and killing. even if people had lived perfectly happily together before that. and i think, again, another rather trite people often say, for example, in the balkan wars people explained serbian violence against the bosnian muslims as saying, well, these are ancient hatreds, and today sort of find a way of -- they explode at a certain time. i don't think hatreds are necessarily ancient even though there are all kinds of myths that keep on coming back and are manipulated by politicians and leaders and so on in order to put people up to violence.

but i don't think there's such a thing as a sort of a smoldering hatred that occasionally like a volcano bursts out son tape yously. -- spontaneously. and i think one of the best examples of this in my book in 1945 is what happened particularly in czechoslovakia and poland where there were large very man populations whose -- german populations whose families had lived there for centuries, and sudden are hi after the war the poles and the czechs were given license by their own leaders as well as in a way by the allies who did nothing to stop it, they were told, now you can do what you like with the germans. we can't live with these people anywhere, they have to be expelled, and in a way do your worst. and people did for several months. now, german nationalists like to claim that what happened to the german populations of poland and

check czechoslovakia or what the germans in germany suffered from the soviet red army which was also horrendous in terms of rapes and killing and torture, that somehow this was just as bad as what the germans did to others. which actually is not the case. >> the huge subject of relativizing and trying to not rewrite, but put in, put a different complexion on these. i mean, it was said in that corporal review in "the new york times" book review that that what you didn't do in this book was, the fashionable word is de-heroize the ally. and that usually goes along the lines. they say, one, her seem ma -- hiroshima; two, dresden bombing,

the return of the ethnic germans where i think the figure you come to is of ten million people turfed out of poland, czechoslovakia, etc., ethnic germans, half a million dead, perhaps a bit more. yalta, where we agreed to return russian p.o.w.s to certain enslavement, if not certain death. and the way we revived colonial ism. the same resistance in france. but certainly, i mean, that's become the myth. but the truth was manager like collaboration -- something like collaboration, not resistance. but i find myself very much

reacting against that in a sort of visceral way. and there is no equivalence. and one should remember as churchill referred to the moral rot of war, an interesting concept that i saw raised that wars get old. and the bigger they are, the faster they age. and six years in a kind of a loss of patience is a mild way of putting it. but we don't feel that, do we? and i think he said, well, we created the united nations and the european community, but i would just sort of say we destroyed hitler. that was the achievement. finish. >> yes. it was a necessary achievement, of course. and one can't take away the

heroism of that. but i think the bleaker conclusion one can draw is that very often heroes can very quickly turn into villains. for example, the soviet red army fought like heroes. i mean, the sacrifices of the soviet soldiers were extraordinary, and they fought like lions, be can it was a necessary fight, and without them we wouldn't have defeated hitler. but those same soldiers behaved like beasts often when they invaded germany. likewise -- >> they were an army of rapists. >> they were an army of rapists. >> and some senator the other day in america said when a woman is raped, she switches off the procreational mechanism. [laughter] he might like to know that there were a million births in those rapes. >> yes, indeed. not just the soviets were not the only ones who were guilty.

when -- because of the japanese occupation of countries in southeast asia such as the dutch east indies, malaya and so on, the asians in those countries, the roque population -- local population certainly didn't want to go to the status quo afte whereas the disturb -- the dutch and the british did have preillusions. now, the nationalists in these countries had often in burma collaborated with the japanese quite understandably because they saw that as their chance to liberate themselves from their european colonial masters. but after the war in europe, these nationalists were depicted as collaborators; collaborators with fascism. so who was sent -- and north africa and algeria. so who was sent there as

soldiers to put down the anti-colonial nationalist rebellions with brute and often atrocious force if people -- force? people who'd fought against the resistance against the nazis. my point is that human behavior including the propensity for atrocity and extreme violence is not a matter of character or of culture, it's a matter of circumstances. the same people who can behave like heroes in certain circumstances can behave like animals in others. >> yes. and that ooh finding -- that finding that if someone, if you find yourself -- if you find you have someone cleat -- completely at your mercy, the human thought that comes next is torture. although we should make note in general of stephen pinker's book the better angels of our nature,

why violence is -- [inaudible] and one sort of rears back a bit from his conclusion that violence has declined and is continuing to decline. and of the reasons he uses, one very important notion that took a lot of reestablishing itself after the war was who has the monopoly of violence. it must be the state. this is a founding idea of what makes a nation-state. >> not in this country. >> no, no, identify always thought that americans haven't -- i've always thought that americans haven't accepted that precept, and they want to be able to stand up to the u.s. army if things should get slightly tyrannical in the white house. but that has been, you know, the police are what stops violence going back a couple of centuries

and that gathering force. also you may be interested to know it's rather flattering for a novelist, stephen pinker doesn't like the word embassy. he said he heard a mother screaming at her two children -- [inaudible] that's unquestionably what the novel promoted. and do you think this iser rad call --er rad call, this, the idea that you would torture someone if you get the chance? >> no, i don't think so. and i don't think high culture makes us into better human beings. i mean, this was one of george steiner's great hobby horses, how is it only that an ss officer who could play schuman

absolutely beautifully and read poems could the next day go to work and pull out people's fingernails. i don't think it's rarely all that mysterious. nor do i think that higher education makes us into more moral human beings. i really do think it is a question of -- well, as i said, i think of circumstances. i suppose if you think of more recent wars, then it's a real moral dilemma. because when you talk about the monopoly of force, saddam hussein certainly monopolized force in his state and in an extremely brutal manner. it was a state in which torture was widespread, this which people were gassed -- >> he came up through the torture. >> indeed, he did, he was a torturer. he monopolized it. one could argue there's one thing people fear more than a brutal dictatorship, and it's

anarchy in which it's every man for himself and chaos and -- which we see to some extent where we see it in libya now. we see it to some extent this iraq and so on -- in iraq and so on which is not to say, well, that means things would have been better if we'd left saddam hussein alone, but it's manager that people -- it's something that people should think about a bit more before they casually say, well, we as americans it's our duty to fight dictatorship and bring freedom and use military force to do so. >> they should have listened to what saddam said which is iraq is a very difficult country to govern. [laughter] >> well, he was right. >> helicopter gunships and ubiquitous torture and terror. >> yeah. i mean, terrible, brutal, dictatorial order for most people is probably still to be preferred to violent anarchy. and violent anarchy is in ways

what you had this 1945 until order was reimposed. >> ideology. the period 1914 to 1945 has often been called the thirty years' war, europe's second thirty years' war. but it wasn't a war of religion on the face of it. and ideology, you know, looking back because, obviously, the sense was that ideology finish religion was like hair win, and ideology was like methadone. [laughter] you know, it brings you trembling down from religion. but not a bit of it, 100 million dead prefer communism, naziism, fascism. barbarities not seen for centuries because of ideology. >> well, and also the borderline between ideology and religion is

not always so clear. in its most violent phases, ask much of it was very violent, there's not a huge distinction, maoism, because it was also a religious cult in which people could be tortured to death for -- [inaudible] on a newspaper with mao's image on it. and that's religion at its worst really. it's not ideology, it has nothing to do with marxism, it's a cult. >> and the it's the pier group, isn't it? i mean, you know, considered -- i mean, one of the, if you think the peer group is emphasized as a determinant of young people's behavior and, in fact, throughout their lives, the great study of that is christopher browning's police

reserve battalion 101 where it's established that the killing squads that went out behind the -- [inaudible] in poland and in russia who would, you know, can kill everyone in the village -- what is that, 38,000 dead? kill all day, kill women and children and men all day, and no one ever got punished for seeking, seeking transfer. they weren't sent to the front. today weren't sent to some -- they weren't sent to some penal commander at the front, they were transferred. and all you might have in the meantime was a bit of jostling in the lunch queue as people said you're letting the side down. and there is not a single case of anyone being be punished for requesting a transfer. and yet rather than shame themselves in front of the

group, they would kill women and chirp all day -- children all day, every day. >> yeah. they didn't necessarily enjoy it. there was a sort of wear and tear on the nerves which is why, of course, the gas chambers were employed. because after a while the killing gets, it's a bit of a strain. so, you know, even if they got drunk -- which they did. and so it was considered to be cleaner and more efficient to have gas chambers, and the people who operated the gas chambers were not usually germans either. that was left up to the victims to do that. so it's not necessarily the case that it was -- that the killers found it easy. but i suppose you can get with used to anything. and the other thing is while we're on this cheerful subject, i've often thought that the reason why the violence if civil

wars -- and, again, to come pack to the ethnic germans after the war in poland and czechoslovakia, the reason why they're so particularly brutal and the killing almost always goes together with humiliation. you see it in india where the last famous instance was when the sikhs set upon the -- what was it? i can't remember now. rajiv -- indira gandhi's son. in any case, in india you see it over and over. people who set upon their neighbors. and it wasn't enough to kill people the way the jews were killed also, it wasn't enough just to kill them, they'd have to go -- it was always preceded by humiliation of some grotesque kind. and i think that this is simply speculation, i think one of the reasons is that it's very --

it's not easy for one human being to murder another human being, especially if they identify with them, if they were their neighbors, if they look like you and so on. so it makes it easier if you reduce your victim to the status of an animal, some abject creature crawling around in the mud. and then you're killing an an hall and no longer a human being, which is why you have to reduce people to that state. >> animalization or insectization. >> yes. it's why in rwanda the victims were called cockroaches on the radio. it's easier to kill cockroaches than it is your neighbor. >> and the self-fulfilling slander is marvelous to watch. be in the ghettos of poland. and i think, you know, if the holocaust had never happened, we would regard that as some sort of ap gee -- ap poe gee, how the

poles were terrorized, looted, exploited and had to work for their conqueror. but goebbels wrote a report where he said i visited -- if there's anyone who has any is sympathy at all, they should go and have a look of what people heft for themselves en masse. they have no self-respect, not even common decency, etc., etc. the way they treat their children, their children are starving, the way they like after -- the imposition of what you think of him x. then the recording of your indignation. >> yes. well, here's where i found it rather unpleasant. hitler had -- >> hitler? >> yeah. >> he saw a massacre and fainted nearly. >> yes.

>> a german in 1942 and heard that in east prussia they were machine gunning mental patients to clear bed space for people who'd gone mad while killing women and chirp in the east -- and children in the east. and i thought something is not quite right in germany. >> no. but on the other hand, in the same city in '45 after the liberation russian troops, often teenagers, raided hospitals and raped people sometimes on their death beds, patients. so we have to be a little careful, the two of us. when you write about violation, there is, of course -- violence, there is, of course, the danger of the por nothing the by of violence. we're frightened of it and, therefore, fascinated by it. and one as a writer -- >> excited by it. >> i don't know how you feel, but one always has to be a bit careful that you don't start to

revel in descriptions of it, because there is a pornographic element. and how one guards against that, i have no clear answer to it. but it's a factor. >> yeah -- >> as we sit here. >> very closely alied to what -- applied was called literary luxury when you come to these horribly, unwelcomely rich human experiences -- >> and it's close to sex. that's why i think there is a pornographic element. people read about violence with a fascination that's not entirely unrelated to the fascination for reading about sex. >> well, it was said that many of the americans had erections, visible erections as they were -- but in line with what pinker, pinker's argument, one

might note that there was a standing ovation in congress when kelly got his sentence commuted. and it was a rock a billy hit song, what was it, the battle hymn that was on top of the rockabilly charts for a month. and americans didn't find "my lie" shocking. >> well, i don't know if that's -- >> not immediately. well, not en masse anyway. >> no. but i think there was, there was sort of a horror that americans -- again, americans are, of course, as comparable of doing these things as germans are. and it's an interesting case because people often wonder about things like the rape of nan king in 1937 when the japanese took the chinese capital at the time, and there was massive rape and killing and looting and so on.

and it's often been explained that the japanese are particularly cruel and barbaric. again, circumstances. how is it possible that an army behaved like that a even though in the russo-japanese war, the japanese army was known for its discipline and how well it treated its p.o.w.s and so on? and i think hawaii lie explains a little bit what happened in world war ii and afterwards as well this that it's a particular situation where soldiers are in a foreign country, today don't understand the language, they're at sea, they're often country boys, they -- you could be shot at by anybody. the distinction between guerrilla fighters and soldiers and so on is, almost doesn't exist. so you go into a town or a village, you have no idea who's going to be shooting at you. there is then a great temptation to be trigger happy and just shoot the brutes and shoot them

all. and i think that's -- i don't think me lie was an act of necessarily -- despite the erections of calculated sadism -- i think these things also can come out of fear. >> and they have taken many, they've been -- they take a lot of losses. >> as had the japanese. and again, there's this thing of dehumanization of enemy. quote-unquote, gooks in sort of black pajamas in some remote village to a lot of those fearful provincial soldiers from rural america would not have seemed to be entirely human. >> i'd like to read a sentence, because what's -- what this book does so well is capture the amazing complexity in all the

different theaters, the different situations. and how, how ramified it all was. this is talking about yugoslavia. the parties in several civil wars going on at the same time fought along ethnic, political and religious lines, croatian catholics versus serbian royalists versus slovenia communists. >> sounds a bit like syria. [laughter] >> but, i mean, look at greece and indonesia. wars don't end until they roll through villages, but they don't end even after they've done that. >> no, because -- >> revolutionary violation. >> right. and what wars do just as

dictatorships often do and foreign occupation is they deliberately manipulate resentments, divisions and so on that exist in societies anyway. in fran. the regime -- in france the regime would never have come to power if it hadn't been for german occupation. in greece, again, the antagonism between the left and the right goes back to the prewar period when they had a right-wing dictator hardship and a left-wing opponent -- and the eau points were locked up in jail. the germans occupied greece. the resistance comes from the left, often communists. the old guard become collaborators with the germans, and that goes on after the war. and and so in greece it ended up in a very brutal civil war. in italy it could have easily been -- become a civil war. in france it was simmering. in belgium the dutch-speaking

flemish nationalists were deliberately enflamed by the german occupation against the french-speaking -- [inaudible] there was no monarchy in belgium to keep things together because he was tainted by trying to make a deal with the germans and so on. so what happens after the war, it's not that you topple the dictator or bring the brutal enemy to heel. in some ways the problems go on. and the problems which have been made worse or by or war -- by war. and how do you contain that? well, having sort of a national figure, a king or a queen or de gaulle if the case of france who has the legitimacy to sort of patch things up, and de gaulle did it very deliberately by talking about -- [speaking french] and everybody had been anti-german, and thousand it was time to pull -- now it was time to pull together again.

it was probably a necessary thing to do because otherwise the country could have been torn aart. i mean, the other reason you didn't have civil wars in france and in italy is that stalin, the soviets in the western eyes very cleary divided -- clearly divided the world, and stalin told the french and and italian communists he was not going to support a revolution there. >> talk a bit about japan, because it's very extreme process that went on there. the cult, the revamping of japan root, bow, branch and twig, you know, removal of -- the emperor had to confess that he was human and not divine. and -- >> which came as a great relief to the emperor. [laughter] i don't think anybody really likes to be a god with. the emperor preferred to have his english breakfast and putter about, be human. >> talk about the process --

>> well, the difference between germany and japan is that -- which is the other thing, of course. after world war ii, the allies often had a very hazy idea of what had produced all this horror. as you said in the beginning, what explains what the nazis did, what the germans did? there's from one of the most common tierlies at the time -- theories at the time, and that was one that churchill for a long time believed in, it was because of the prussianism, the military spirit that had produced all this. of course, later that was -- we knew better. >> and the prussians were the officers, the colonels -- >> who tried to assassinate hitler in 1944. >> yeah. >> although some of them had been quite enthusiastic nazis before. nonetheless, they were sort of relatively seeking gentlemen. so in germany it was fairly easy

to because there had been a clear takeover in 933 -- 1933 by a criminal regime that came to an end in 1945. there was a fats si party, there was -- nazi party, there was hitler. so in germany you could make the case, and this was some truth to it, that if you get rid of the nazi elements in the government, you get rid of nastyism, germany could be restored to a decent european country. after all, it was also the country of mozart and bay hone the and all that. there was a real culprit. the nazi party, hitler, the ss -- >> so de-nazify. >> in japan it wasn't equivalent because there was no hitler, this was no holocaust, in fact, even though there was enormous -- there was an enormous amount of killing in china in particular and also southeast asia, but there was no deliberate, system pattic attempt -- systematic attempt to

'em terminate an entire people. and if japan the explanation was a variant of prussianism, it was the militarism spirit, something deeply rotten about japanese culture. so while in germany you could de-nazify and revive the best of german culture, the feeling amongst the often rather ignorant allies after the war was there's something so wrong about japanese culture that is feudalistic, warrior-like, that the whole culture has to be turned upside down. so kabooky plays had to be banned -- >> anything to do with feudalism. >> everything to do with feudalism and to democratize japan along american lines, today had to be sort of reeducated in a very fundamental way. and and there were some comical instances of this. there was one man, i think from kansas, u.s. army officer who was in charge of a town somewhere in japan, in rural

japan, who taught that square dancing was the answer. [laughter] because square dancing was very -- would democratize the japanese. there was a case of the first screen kiss in the cinema. the idea was japanese men and women have to be able to, have to treat each other like equals x that means like americans, they have to be able to show tear affection openly is and not in this feudal way it is a always hidden. so it's good to have a kiss. and so the american occupation authorities, the censorship board -- well, it wasn't called censorship board, but the occupational authorities -- decreed that they had to have the first cinematic kiss which was humanly popular with young audiences in japan and who burt into wild applause -- burst into wild applause. but in any case, unlike germany, they had to be reeducated which was a key phrase at the time. and the japanese were so

frightened that the americans would do to them what they did to the chinese and other asians and that they would be raped and massacred and so on that they -- whereas, in fact, the u.s. occupation army, and it was postally the u.s. in japan -- postally the u.s. in japan, were relatively we nine. and that came as such a relief that most of the japanese who were also thoroughly sick of war and everything to do with the military were more than happy to be the pupils of american reeducation efforts. and, indeed, even the emperor probably was. >> we're sort of coming to the end. perhaps you could tell two anecdotes. one about -- well, what happened to your father. and then that very nice epilogue to your book when you -- >> well, what gave me the idea to do this book was really my

father's story, which is as follows. it baffled me for a long time. he was a law student in 1941, and if you're a law student, the thing was to join the fraternity because that's where you made your contacts ask can on -- and so on. and to join the fraternity then and still today meant you had to go through an initiation, and that meant a lot of hazing and bullying and humiliation, being made to jump around like a frog and being beaten up and so on. and the fraternities in 1941 were actually banned by the german authorities because they thought they were sources of resistance. but at my father's school it went on for another year underground. so all the aizing was clandestine, as it were. you also as a student had to sign an oath of allegiance to the nazi occupational authorities, and 75% of the students, including my father,

refused to do this. and if you refused, you were forced to work in the german war industry s. my father, like others, went into hiding, and then somebody screwed up in the student underground resistance, told him to come back to his hometown, and he was met by my grandfather who was in bad health, and there was a lot of very man police around, and it was announced that those young men who didn't sign the oath had to go to germany immediately, and if they didn't, their parents would be arrested. and my father was afraid that this would happen to his participant, so he ended up in berlin. and he lives through the bombingsing at night, the u.s. air force during the day, the red army, the battle of berlin. he was almost shot by be a soviet soldier, he collapsed of exhaustion and hunger -- >> vermin. >> vermin, all that, yes. fleas, in his case. he was particularly frightened. he always said that those who had fleas didn't have lice and vice versa.

but he was nursed back to some kind of health by a german prostitute, ended up in a displaced persons camp and then back to holland in the summer of 1940. and went back to university only to be told by senior members of the fraternity that because the initiation in '41 had on underground, they had to do the whole thing over again. [laughter] and there were boys who had suffered far worse than my father who suddenly went forth to jump around like frogs and so on. so i said to my father how is it possible that you could have put up with this nonsense after all you'd exappearanced? he sort of shrugged his shoulder and said, well, it's the way it was. and also we thought that was normal. and i think that's the keyword, because i think they were yearning for some kind of normality. and to go back to the world that had been before the war. that to him and to others, this represented the normal world.

now, he was not a particularly -- he is not, he's still alive. he's 90. he's not a particularly traumatized man. he was not -- he never was even particularly anti-german. but certain things from his war experience did linger, and one of them was a horror of fireworks and sort of loud bangs. german crowds are not his favorite place to be stuck in either. and in 1989 we decided, my sisters and i, that we would go spend the new new year's eve in berlin. and it was only the second time that he'd been back. and there we were at the wall, and it was all very fest i have. and my father was perfectly happy to be there in these enormous crowds of people sort of with champagne bottles and singing and sitting on the wall and all that. and it was near midnight. and suddenly the fireworks exploded, and we'd lost our tower in the crowd. we couldn't -- our father in the crowd. we couldn't find him. we looked for him, looked for him and in the end went back to

the hotel, and at about 2:00 in the morning he staggered into the room x he'd been hit by a fire rocket. and the reason i use this story is that 1989 was seen by many as now finally world war ii is over. this is the end. eastern europe is now finally free. now we live -- george bush talked about the new order, new world order, finally, we are in this better world that everybody has hoped for. >> the end of history. >> the end of history, etc. and i somewhat mischievously used that anecdote to show that, unfortunately, the brave new world will never come. [applause] >> i think time for you to -- [applause] >> please, stick your hands up.

>> [inaudible] >> oh, okay. >> because then everyone can hear. >> all right. but it's hard for someone to -- >> well, if it's too hard, talk loud. >> i'm glad it's called off a bit. i was feeling a bit like albert brooks in "broadcast news." [laughter] >> this is a question for -- maybe directed to both of you but really -- >> can't hear you. >> we can't hear you. >> is this on? >> no. [inaudible conversations] there are. >> speak into it. >> that's better. >> is that better? just a question directed maybe to both of you and triggered by mr. amis' comment on hiroshima and some of the allied atrocities. and i certainly agree that there's no moral equivalence. i buy into that. but it seems to me that kind of

one of the unique qualities of world war ii was the targeting of civilians on both sides. i mean, prior wars were basically professional military people killing professional military people. and that was on both sides. i mean, once the germans bombed london and the raf, as you mentioned the raf and the u.s. air force bombed, you know, german civilians, some of whom may have been like the rest of us in the room, maybe not particularly political and so on. and i wondered if you would just comment on that. >> well, there were two reasons -- it's a bit like these killers in poland. i mean, you get used to it. and there were two reasons why the british began to bomb deliberately civilian populations in cities like hamburg and later -- [inaudible] and one was an illustration of how people often learn the wrong lessons of history.

because the generals who fought if world war ii had memories of world war i. and the last thing they wanted was a war of attrition. and they thought that bombing would demoralize the enemy population. they would then turn against their leaders and bring the war to a speedier end which turned out to be a completely faulty analysis. in fact, it often did the opposite, it raises the 40 real this in an odd way -- morale like london can take it and so forth. >> they talk about the air wars of being a defeat. >> yes. >> a defeat. >> but there's another reason though, which is that the british were desperate. i think hamburg was '42? and there was no way that the british then, because he were -- no, it must have been earlier. and there was no way to fight back at that stage against what was still a formidable german

enemy. and it was felt that they had to do something. and they thought that bombing german cities at least was a token of fighting back. and in the beginning, they tried to bomb harbors, railway stations that kind of thing, and it was too costly because they didn't have the kind of equipment that allowed you to bomb from a great height. so they had to go too low and were losing bomb wither crews like flies. so that's why they thought this new tactic of bombing civilians and demoralizing them. now, once they'd started doing that, it got progressively worse. and hen something that was -- then something that would have still have been thought to be an atrocity except, by the way, when it came to the fuzzy was says in the colonies because the first instance of bombing civilians, i think it was in iraq, when churchill was minister of war, i believe, and bomber harris was already involved then, and that's when it started. but when they started doing it

large scale this germany, it got progressively worse and more vindictive. and then in japan it was even worse than that because the cities were made of wooden houses, and they dropped toeser if bombs and had tirestorms and became -- firestorms and it became -- the famous phrase by curtis lemay, the american air force general, of bombing them back to the stone age people often associate with vietnam. actually, he said that when they were in '44 and -- i think late '44 when they were bombing japan. and robert mcnamara later in the famous documentary by err roll mcdonald said that if allies had lost the war, they would have been war criminals. >> although when the moral equivalence idea is brought up, one should stress that -- and people have said just as bad as the death camps. >> well, it's a different thing. >> well, it's a different thing for this reason, among others,

that thing with losses of the air crews were staggering. tens of thousands of people died delivering those bombs s. and only a handful of ss ever got killed this the rebellions in the camps. >> yes, that's absolutely true. also, they didn't do it because there was some ideological ram of ex-- program of exterminating germans or japanese. it was an act of war. it was an atrocious act of war, but it was an act of war as it were the war against the jews had nothing to do with any kind of military exercise. it was purely about killing. >> yeah. and, in fact, it detracted from the war effort. >> yes. >> [inaudible] >> oh, okay. >> my question segways into that. did america really have to drop the atomic bomb, bombs on japan, or were they so weak they would have surrendered anyway? >> well, they probably would have, but the question is when.

and the americans wanted to finish the war as quickly as they could because they were running out of money. most americans were sick of war. they wanted the boys to come home. so the appetite to prolong it was very low. and there was also the fear at that stage that soviets would invade japan first. and so they did want to bring -- they wanted to avoid an invasion at all costs. now, was it really necessary? we will never entirely -- we will never know for sure. what we do know is that even after the second act -- [inaudible] nagasaki, the japanese war council which was, they were the ones who had to decide on whether to surrender or not, and it had to be a unanimous decision. and diehards this the war council -- in the war council still argue that they had to fight to the last man, woman and child.

and it was only the second time in his reign that the emperor actually did step in. i mean, i'm sure he didn't do it -- [inaudible] but he did step in and say, no, no, we have to surrender. and the main reason i think was that the japanese were afraid that the red army would get there first, or that there would be a communist-inspired rebellion. the other thing the atom bombs did was that it gave the diehards in some ways an excuse to surrender. because they could say, well, this is force major. we haven't lost face. we fought a war. we were not defeated, but with a weapon like that, i mean, it's like boxing somebody and your opponent suddenly draws a gun. i mean, what can you do? so it served as a way out. now, whether it was absolutely necessary, as i said, we won't know because they would have

venterred -- surrenders, but it may have taken more time. more interestingly, i'd like to know what martin thinks, because you've written on this more than i have really. no, the moral question. is there a moral difference between tire bombing tokyo and till -- fire bombing tokyo and killing more than 100,000 people in a few nights and using an atom bomb and killing -- and the numbers are not perhaps the relevant factor, but let's say killing an equivalent number of people. is there a different between -- a moral difference between one weapon and another? it's not always clear to me. >> well, we should say about hiroshima and nagasaki that they had only two bombs. >> yes. >> one uranium, one blew pluton. and they'd spent an incredible amount of money making those bombs -- >> yeah. you've got to use them. >> you just thought they were, you know, a demonstration over the ocean, perhaps. but they had to make those two

things count. i don't know, this comes up up all the time, the moral difference. did you feel there was a moral difference when, many syria when -- in syria when chemical weapons were used? >> well, i -- no, it wasn't heedly clear to me. was, yes, of course, using chemical weapons is absolutely horrific. but i think the red line was a rhetorical mistake because -- >> yeah. it certainly was. >> if you do nothing for 100,000 people being killed by other means and you suddenly say, well, we have to go to war because they're using chemical weapons, i'm a bit dubious about that distinction. >> well, i think, you know, chemical weapons and biological weapons, they, they're exponential weapons. and i think one should have a, certainly in terms of international policing. >> yeah. >> you have to have a -- >> because to ban them, of course. i'd be entirely in favor of that. but to say that there's an

absolute moral distinction, i'm not so sure about that. >> not an absolute one, but partly practical one. >> yes. >> that they do kill lots of people, and they can go on -- >> yes. but, i mean, ten you'd have to say -- then you'd have to sagassing people also -- say gassing people also kills people more efficiently than shooting them, but was there a moral distinction between the gas chambers ask shooting people in the neck? >> well, the gas chambers were, in a way -- [inaudible] because they probably would have gotten close just using bullets. gas is a lot cheaper. >> yes, but that's a practical consideration. >> yes, indeed. >> thank you. i've learned a lot from the things you have said. i really liked what you said about the fact that we're all very educated does not mean we

are better and we act so differently from the ignorant people of this world. for me the question then is, what formation should we be talking about to help humanity? to make sure that people behave well? or are we doomed to believe that there's no formation out there that we can put together to help humanity? >> right. >> so that, you know, each time we get into a crisis situation, it becomes a question of circumstances, and we, you know, we just become violent? along with this i realize in the last few years, especially in this country, the humanities have been taking a hit. and, you know, technological,

studies in technology and science seems to be what the universities want to promote. they bring more money many in, i realize. the thinking this will also, you know, the reading of humanities is not going to improve our well being? i don't want to ramble too much, but you are giving me very wonderful and insightful answers. >> well, martin is more of the -- [laughter] >> yeah. either one of you will help me think through this whether, you know -- what kind of formation. >> well, i'm not sure i can help you. unless you're religious and you believe that religion will make us behave better concern which this some ways hay actually be true -- may actually be true, but it's largely a question of institutions and law. and you need to have a monopoly

on force as a government, you need to have laws that play a major role in making people behave, you need a police force, you need proper institutions. and without proper institutions, the law of the jungle prevails. and as i said, i think that when the law of the jungle prevails, it doesn't matter whether you're german or american or japanese or black or white or yellow, then the worst happens. of. ..

that works on people's basest instincts it obviously is not true for everybody will behave like a monster. the number of people that behave like absolute monster is quite deliberately is probably not the majority. the majority tries to survive and look the other way so the absolute monsters are not the majority but nor are they the hero's, the moral heroes are even rarer. in the worst circumstances you will have moral hero's. he stood up to the nazi regime and paid with his life and was

intensely decent and moral person. determines whether you are a monster or hero. that may be true but i think you are right. as i said before, sometimes heroes become monsters, possibly even the other way around. >> there wasn't much in germany. there are many more monsters than heroes. in the camps, one in ten,

special satisfaction. but one in a thousand were heroes. >> it is much more dangerous to be up moral hero than to be a monster, the real heroes. >> minor consideration. >> on that same point you mentioned -- in berlin, one of the best novels, described the period, alone in berlin translated in the u.s. everyman dies alone. i wonder if you had an opinion about moral emigration of the author or the novel? >> not entirely clear. >> to be part of their

immigration in germany, and recounted what german life was like. he didn't say he was a hero but was able to give voice to what germans experienced during the war. it was published in 2010 by penguin. it died a month before it was published. >> it goes half way through. all things, in the invasion of france, didn't come until september of 41. the writing of that book was

that courageous. and actually scathing, hate filled, intelligent reaction to the nazi rule, not day-by-day but little chunks, ten feet deep. >> also a kind of -- and day-by-day accounting. >> it is a fascinating one but the question about immigration, it is an important one. the difference between nazi

germany, non-jewish german, the most fascist states, immigration was a possibility. and attended your roses which survived. that is absolutely impossible. you have to actually actively participate and voice your enthusiasm and you couldn't just withdraw and retreat. wasn't an option. >> thank you. >> my question is about japan, and correct me, japanese government is becoming more and more right wing, 1945 commemorated the beginning of nuclear war so to speak and the

japanese government tries to sell nuclear industry's. what do you think of that? >> it is a long way from 1945. although not entirely. let's leave the nuclear question aside for a minute. the right wing nature of the current prime minister does go back to 1945. the re-education in japan in 1945-46-47 was the americans wrote as you well know, a new constitution and because the war was blamed on militarism it was up pacifist constitution and most japanese work perfectly content, proud of it even. but some japanese, nationalists, felt this was robbing japan of its sovereignty. if you can't use military force under any circumstances, in your foreign policy, you have to leave it up to somebody else

come in this case the americans. there has always been a vociferous minority that wants to change the constitution and restore japan's of right to use its armed forces. the mainstream in japan, especially the left of always used the argument against revision of the constitution by saying japan, like an alcoholic, you can't start waving a drink hundred knows because it will go through sideways, then in manila and so on, we should never be tempted. and every country has wars in its history. no worse than any other country. nothing we should be ashamed of. with revised constitution and feel proud of ourselves. that is the attitude of the

current prime minister. what is disturbing about it is history has become so polarized and politicized in japan that nobody is talking about -- nobody is tempted to find the truth anymore. it is all about what political agenda you have and that determines your view of the war rather than facing at cooley and squarely as germans learned how to do. >> i am interested, very interested in the german acceptance of hitler. i am not sure it was as easy as you have depicted. were there not more than a score, as many as three active

plots against hitler, the most famous was in 44, were there not many others and were there not religious groups, military groups, other groups of people that did not care for hitler and many actively worked against him? for example allen dulles of military intelligence, cooperating very closely, but anglo-saxon or anglo-american historians seem not to realize that. is that true? >> the only institution that could have stood up to hitler effectively was the army and i think the army, all the opposition in the army melted after france in summer of '94 -- 1914. no one believed he could conquer france in the way he proposed any and he did it. and he had sound and good people

that just for a couple weeks or so was a bit rough around the edges. france, the historical enemy, once the army has come on board, that was the end of the opposition. >> he got rid of generals very quickly and didn't go along with him. so there were indeed people in germany who opposed and said the use of terror was very affective. it took more and more courage to oppose him openly which became almost impossible. so yes, once he was in power there were many people who didn't like what was going on, many chose immigration because that was the only way to

survive. i don't think it is anglo-american prejudice to say there was not much in the way of real organized opposition, the way opposition groups here and there in the army and elsewhere, not much. >> the people when the assassination attempt, the colonel's plot failed, he had the nation behind him in 44. >> most germans did ok as long as you weren't jewish and people got badly bombed and people in occupied countries, life wasn't all that bad. it was attractive, it took a huge amount of courage to actively resist it. i don't think there was acute

amount on it. >> very difficult to be raised in nazi germany. you had to be prepared to die but you had to be prepared for torture and you had to withstand that because naming their names, it is not very accessible to us, a vague german thing in occupied countries, any criminal could die like the murder but in germany it was arranged any marker could die like a criminal. you wouldn't be celebrated after your death, your wife would turn your photograph around, your parents and children would be told -- >> doesn't answer after you are dead. >> is a sort of a nominee that a german would find it difficult

to comprehend. that was actually what stopped, not physical college but the shame. polk and breck applause] >> reporter: visit the author's web site ian buruna.com. >> every weekend since 1998 booktv has brought the top nonfiction authors including had the rosen. >> i think increasingly women's identity as tied to their work in a way we might not like bill

which we may find disturbing, the ceo of yahoo! was asked how much maternity leave you want to take and she said none. the fact that such women exist is not the way i was -- i took plenty of maternity leave but i feel like that is the kind of woman there can be a space for and there are some state -- stay at home dads to don't entirely live in portland, ore. that is okay too. >> the only television network devoted to nonfiction books and throughout the fall we are marking 15 years of booktv on c-span2. from the 30th annual miami book fair international on the campus of miami dade college congresswomen debbie wasserman schultz discusses her book "for